


taste of ash and sugar

by Areiton



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek, Apocalypse, Falling In Love, I cried writing this, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Not A Happy Ending, Rocks Fall Everyone Dies, Spark Stiles Stilinski, everyone dies, look - Freeform, so please be warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-19 13:19:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11898567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: The world ends in waves. And you don't notice, until you can't ignore it any longer.





	taste of ash and sugar

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I don't have any excuses for this. It's angst with some fluffy sexy times but mostly it's just the end of the world and all that comes with it. I'm sorry.

The world felt like it was ending so often, you forget to pay attention. So when it actually does, when the walls come crashing down--you aren't actually prepared.

Except maybe you are. You're good with a bat, and have survived more than you ever should have, and you've got Scott, you've got the pack.

You've got your Dad and Lydia and you've got Derek, and really, what else matters?

Let the world end--it's been doing that in slow stages for years, and you're happy, even as it all burns around you.

When he kisses you, it tastes likes sugar and you forget the ash in the air.

 

*

 

It started with whispers. There was a pandemic in Africa that had made the news even in your quiet paranormal plagued town, but the travel restrictions locked down and you wondered about Isaac and Jackson, but then you dismissed it because a chupacabra was chewing its way through the town’s dogs and you had a vested interest in the canine population.

Africa could care for itself, you thought, turning off the TV and ignoring the newspaper that your Dad glared at.

 

*

 

When you realize you love him, you know the world is ending. Fuck the newspapers. Derek Hale is soaked in cold water and is pressing you into the sheets of his bed, his hands on your hips pushing you deeper into the mattress,  every inch of him draped over you, and he’s whining into the kiss, shuddering as you lick into his mouth, and it’s so fucking good that you’re pretty sure you’ll never have better.

Then he shoves your pants down and hits his knees by the bed, drags you to him and you scream as heat engulfs you. Claws prick your skin, almost a caress as he swirls his tongue around you, and bobs, swallowing when you hit the back of his throat, working himself on your cock, and you can hear the sound of his fist on his dick, can feel the vibrations of his moans around you and the heat of the fires have nothing on _this._

When you close your eyes, you can see the him on his knees and the forests around Beacon Hills, burning. And you smile, because you love him.

You love him.

 

*

 

The whispers are murmurs by the time they reach Europe. The pandemic--it’s a strain of distemper that spread through the wildlife. No one expected the jump from animals to humans. Deaton commented on it, when you stopped by to pick up some research texts--you were still a little surprised that he was allowing that, not hiding in his mystic shit, but he began treating you like an equal when you stood at Derek’s side as an Emissary and repelled the Chambliss pack from British Columbia.

You don’t really think about it--Europe having a distemper problem, even if that was affecting the humans and the shifter population, is _their_ problem.

You have your hands full with a honest to god _dragon_ who decided to nest in the damn Preserve. You nod at Deaton and tell him you’ll read his notes and scoot out of the clinic, headed back to where the wolves have your fire-breathing reptilian guest cornered.

 

*

 

There are boundaries, even in a world on fire. Places where there the death is held back, where the fires do not touch. Safe places where you allow yourself to be happy.

Your father’s house, and Melissa’s. Derek's house.

The preserve was, until a wildfire sparked in what was left of Arizona, spreading so fast you could actually see it crawling across the land. You know it’s coming, and the pack races the flames, protecting the town. You’re magic can hold  Beacon Hills.

You see something shatter in Derek’s eyes, when you admit that you can’t save the preserve. He nods, though, signals the retreat. And you lick your lips, taste salt and heat on them as you stand next to Deaton and throw your magic up and out, draw on the nemeton and your own will, on Lydia’s screams, until all you can hear is the dead wailing and the wolves howling and the roar of the flames that cannot touch you.

Derek holds you when you collapse, cradles you close, and you smile into his skin, because you lost a safe place--but not this one.

 

*

 

You realize the world’s problems are yours the day Scott gets sick. You've ignored it until then, pushed it aside and made it someone else's problem.

You’ve seen the signs, and ignored them, intent on the pack and the slew of threats that have come, one on top of the other, for months.

Deaton said that the nemeton would be a beacon, but none of you expected _this_. It’s easy, to forget that the rest of the world is burning, when your own house is underwater.

But then, between one day and the next, Scott is sick.

It happens so fast that you can’t wrap your head around it. One afternoon you’re patrolling with him, and he’s taking on an omega, laughing wetly when it’s dead and his ribs are knitting closed.

And the next, he’s coughing up blood, sweating, veins standing out black against his skin and Deaton is working, feverish, over him while you scream _save him_ and Derek stands helpless a few steps away.

Scott’s body is too hot too hot burning hot beneath your hands, his breath a gust of death and heat against your face, his eyes flooded red.

The red of blood, blinding and deadly, not the bright glowing red of the alpha you call brother.

Scott dies, there, in a vet’s clinic where you believed you were invincible, while you sob and the world--

This is when the world begins to end.

 

*

 

The fire comes first. Fire and flood and death.

Lydia hears it, flames crackling, until she can feel the heat, burning against her skin. She crawls into the puppy pile, a place she avoided after Isaac, and Ethan and Jackson flew in, wild-eyed and haunted, and moved into Derek’s oversized house. You wrap around her and the pack curls around their humans and if she is so hot it stings to touch her, none of you mentions it.

You wake, your skin blistered, as Lydia screams and screams and screams.

When you look outside, you see the smoke coloring the horizon and wonder when all the sky will be black.

 

*

 

You don’t know when Derek went from a guy you were pretty sure wanted to kill you, to a guy you grudgingly tolerated to your alpha.

And now--this.

He’s laughing, his head tipped back and you grin at him over your shoulder.

You’re cooking, a mess of potatoes and sausage, and he’s chopping up something green so you can pretend this is healthy, and your dad has a well rounded dinner. Derek is in his socks and a pair of sweats, a t shirt that’s old and worn, and he’s laughing at a story you told him, about  the time in fifth grade you and Scott camped out at the pool for the summer, so Scott could give Hailey Mills puppy eyes.

“So he’s always had a blindspot when it comes to pretty girls,” Derek chokes out and you grin, wide.

When your dad gets home, he smiles tired and distracted at you both, barely reacting to Derek’s comfortable presence in your kitchen, and they talk over Derek’s college classes while you eat and you’re quiet, happy to let them.

You don’t get this kind of contentment often, and you love the bright gleam in Derek’s eyes as he settles next to you with a big bowl of kettle corn, and The Chronicles of Riddick to pass the night.

You don’t know when Derek went from a stranger you didn’t trust to the friend you can’t imagine life without.

You only know that he did, and the weight of him, pressed against you on the couch, his breath warm when he leans over to mutter at you--it grounds and settles you and when you finally fall asleep, pressed up against Derek sleeping on the couch, you don’t have nightmares.

 

*

 

You were bleeding, when you first accepted that the problems of the world were coming close enough that you _had_ to care. Derek was crouched in front of you, Scott’s hands on your shoulders as Derek twists your leg and your knees gives a sickening lurch before it pops back into place.

You shriek, writhing against Scott’s hold, before Derek’s hands and his are there, pressing and stealing the pain and you moan a little, arching into the drain that left your heart pounding hard and your eyes heavy.

“S’good,” you slur and Scott hums a little, taping up the gashes on your stomach. You pet his hair and Derek snorts softly and it’s that, and the low hum of the TV that you fall asleep to.

When you wake, the room is quiet and dark and you feel Derek more than see him, the heavy hot weight of him behind you on the couch and you tell yourself it’s simply the pain drain, that it has nothing to do with _you_ and everything to do with being a good alpha and force your attention to the TV.

You tense, watching.

New York and Atlanta are under quarantine. Miami is _burning_. You stare and your heart goes rabbit fast, panic setting in so fast and hard you're in the middle of the panic attack before you even realize it, gasping like you’re dying and Derek pulls you closer to him, slots a leg between yours and presses his teeth and lips to your throat.

The world is ending, and it’s _here_ now, crawling across the country toward you, and he’s holding you still as you panic and his words are brushing against your ear as he murmurs.

“I know, Stiles. I know.”

You stay like that, wrapped up in him and the blanket your mother made, and watch the world ending.

 

*

 

She screams until she doesn’t.

She screams until you want to scream with her, even as you hold her close and the pack retreats, their ears too sensitive for a banshee’s wail.

She screams as the world dies, a cry so long and mournful you cry into her neck and your ears bleed, the death wail piercing them.

The world is dying and Lydia will scream it into the end.

She screams, until she doesn’t and that terrifies you more.

When you wake, after a week of listening to the endless wail, listening to her voice crack and break, and shatter, a hoarse, soundless thing that didn’t lose it’s power. She screamed, and you wove spells as you held her, turned that death omen to power you could use, wrapped it around them and your city, around your pack and the humans they called their own, and you could feel it, the way she was dying in your arms, the magic coursing through her breaking her down.

You woke to silence, and she lay still and silent in your arms, her eyes wide and unseeing, her mouth twisted in a rictus scream.

Derek carried her from his bed, and tucked her into a soundproof room, and she lay there, screaming silently as the end of the world crept closer and you stole the power of her screams, leeching it to protect those who you still could.

Sometimes, you woke screaming from dreams, and you can feel the weight of her in your arms, still, even as Derek draws you into him.

You shake and feel the weight of her corpse in your arms as her screams shake silent around you and you know that the dreams are not just nightmares--they’re premonitions.

 

*

 

It was after Atlanta and New York went dark. After Detroit, but before the quarantine hit Chicago.

It was a week, less, after you watched in shock and fear as Miami burned.

You were with the pack, and for once there wasn't  a threat tearing into Beacon Hills, but you wished there was, as you sit crammed between Scott and Lydia and stare at the wolves around you.

“The packs I know on the East Coast have gone silent,” Derek says, and you keep your gaze trained on the table. You don’t need to be a werewolf to know the pack is panicking.

You don’t even blame them.

“At the rate it’s moving, the pandemic will be in California in a week,” Lydia says. “Sooner.”

“I found a spell,” you say, and you let your eyes find Derek’s. He was pissed when you brought this up and he still is, his eyes going stormy and he shakes his head, a hard denial.

“We aren’t doing that.” he says firmly.

“It’ll protect the territory.” You are just as immovable, and hasn’t that always been you and Derek? Hi, Mountain, meet Immovable Object.

“It will _kill_ you,” Derek snarls and you sigh.

“It might,” you correct and Erica makes a choked noise and

Lydia screams, but it’s not a banshee wail, it’s a pained garbled approximation of your name, crunching up in the howls of the pack.

The room is plunged into darkness as the shift tears through them, all of them, a wave of magic stronger than any full moon, and you hear the wet ripping snarl a second before you make a quick gesture and a tight ring of mountain ash slaps down, enclosing you and Lydia in a room full of feral werewolves.

Derek stares at you, bright red eyes in the face of a snarling black wolf, and you don’t seen anything in him that you recognize and that more than anything convinces you the world is ending.

Later, you’ll find out the magical backlash of the walls falling was felt in Europe and Asia.

Later, you’ll find out that the electrical grid crashed and it would take months to get it back online.

Later, you’ll find out that the backlash ripped through the supernatural so savagely everyone lost a few hours, feral and rampaging. No one estimated how many died in those first hours after the Walls fell. No one dared.

Later, you’ll clutch your dad and cry because he’s still alive.

But in this moment, as the walls between this reality and all the other shatter--you stare at the eyes of the man you trust, at the man who think you could love, and you see a stranger and the world is actually ending, but it feels like yours already has.

 

*

 

You’re covered in blood--red and black and the green blood of the wendigo--and you ache, in every damn bone in your body, when you kiss him for the first time.

It’s been six months since the hits started coming, six months since you realized you were in a never ending battle, that it wasn’t just an occasional threat, it was a war and you were pretty sure you were losing.

Derek grabs your hand as you reach for the needle to stitch up your side--you remember that once you were queasy about blood and now it sometimes is comforting, a familiar friend.

It’s as comforting as the fury in Derek’s eyes, the red that gleams at you in desperation and rage and helplessness and he snarls, low, before he shoves you against the door, kisses you rough and savage, and you give back just as good as you get. It’s a battle until it’s not, and then, then it’s a plea, it’s Derek _begging_ for something he can’t put into words, but you get it, you get it. You whisper quiet reassurances and stupid meaningless promises against his ear, sharp and pointed against your lips, and he shudders with every promise, with the rough stroke of your hand against him, and the way you roll against him when he bites at you.

His voice goes high and uneven when you take him in your mouth, batting away his desperate hands, take him until you're choking and he’s thrusting against you, fucking your face as tears stream down your cheeks and he makes a noise, when he comes, that’s not quite a howl, but it’s fucking close and it drives you to your feet, shoving him down, down on the hardwood floor of the loft, and he’s sprawled out under you, pliant and bloody and _yours,_ and he holds you by the hips as you rock against him, his finger pressing into you as you fuck your fist and paint his chest, his bloody chest, with your come.

He rubs it in, after and refuses to shower for hours, holds you like that, bloody and sticky and you don’t mind at all.

Later, you crawl into his bed, warm and pink from your shower and he tugs you close, and fingers you open, fucks you slow on his fingers and his tongue and when you’re sobbing, biting off his name, digging your teeth into his skin, he’ll shift you and slide into you, and you’ll shout, surprised somehow, still. It will be slow and easy until it’s not, and perfect, perfect, perfect, and you won’t know that it’s already over, that it’s been over since before it began.

 

*

 

When the first earthquake shook California, you didn’t think about it.

It was California, earthquakes were sort of a thing here, and besides--the walls had crashed down a week before, leaving everyone scrambling to control their shift, and you scrambling to figure out what the actual hell had happened, and what _actual_ hell you had landed in.

It was Deaton who explained it, to you.

And you were the one who took it  back to the pack.

There wasn’t actually a reason, not one that he could point to and say, this is what caused it. What tore through the magic that kept your world from crashing into others.

Maybe it wasn’t one thing--maybe it was everything. Too many sacrifices and demons raised, too many dead walking, too many rules broken, and the nemeton pulsed like a beacon, amplifying everything you did.

Cracking the walls between this reality and the Wild Hunt--it doesn’t surprise you that the walls came down.

Once you stop fighting the world long enough to think--it doesn’t surprise you at all.

But the earthquake that topples buildings and rips up the Preserve, that makes the dogs howl and cars to drive into sudden gorges, that shakes through California and Washington and Oregon for hours and turns the sky black with dust and smoke--

That surprises you.

That terrifies you.

 

*

 

They get along.

You watch in baffled surprise as Derek slides into your kitchen, a bottle in hand for your father and a kiss on the cheek for you and they’re talking about the game like that’s something Derek actually _cares_ about and he gives you a quick smile before he follows John into the living room.

“I think the world is ending,” you mutter, and finish making dinner almost sullenly.

It makes _sense_ but it irks you, because Derek is almost terrified of disappointing people and your father has been protecting you from everything remotely bad since before you knew what that meant--Derek is the remotely bad and it bothers you, that Derek isn’t being glared at and threatened, that he isn’t flushed and nervous and shaking, promising to protect and defend your virtue, like you didn’t happily hand that to him weeks ago.

But they get along and that’s--

You peek into the living room and they’re talking about a case your dad is working, Derek’s face bright with interest and concern and you feel your heart flip, a sweet ache in it that makes your breath catch and Derek smiles at you from his place on the couch.

After dinner, you traipse upstairs to find your hoodie before heading to Derek’s for a pack meeting, and you hear them, on the way back down.

“He’s all I have.”

“I know, son. He’s all either of us has.”

“I won’t hurt him.” It’s not just a promise, it’s a vow, and it makes you shiver, because you don’t want to think about what he would do, to keep that vow.

“Then don’t hurt yourself. He needs you, Derek.”

You clear your throat loudly and clatter down the remaining stairs and you give them both reproachful eyes that neither seem too bothered by.

The hug you give your dad as you head out is a little tighter than normal, and the blow job you give Derek later that night is a little bit more enthusiastic and grateful.

 

*

 

You don’t bury Scott.

Derek carries him from you three days after he dies, when he is sure that the disease won’t spread any more than it already has. Distantly you know that it ran through Stonimi’s pack, and three are dead. You know Malia is still fighting to survive.

You just can’t bring yourself to give a fuck.

Derek burns him in the yard behind the Hale House, and the wolves watch from the porch.

You stand as close to the fire as you can, feel the heat of it against your skin, and remember a night, years ago, when you stood close to him, willing to burn to save him.

You have no idea how to live, how the world keeps turning, without your brother at your side.

Maybe it doesn't. Maybe all that _can_ happen is the world ending, now.

 

*

 

Lydia tells you about the tsunami.

You don’t know how she knows--maybe it’s a harbinger of death thing, you don’t bother to ask. You listen and you read the books that Deaton gave you and avoid Derek’s gaze, because he _knows_ you are still toying with that damn spell, the one you’ve fought over, the one he refuses to even talk about.

The world is burning, it’s _burning_ and you are sitting here, doing everything you can to hold the line against it all, as threats and disasters spiral closer and it’s not enough.

Africa is swamped by a wave that takes out most of the Caribbean islands, and you--

You are useless to do anything to stop it.

 

*

 

“You _idiots.”_

The warlock is snarling. His kamina is dying at his feet, black blood pooling out. Derek is braced in front of you and you want to push him aside, but blood is still dripping from his claws and Liam is still and paralyzed on the ground.

Malia snarls, vicious and you give her a quelling sort of look that makes her relax some.

“You’re still trying to save this hell hole. The world is _burning.”_

“Burning or not, you’re still trying to take our territory,” you say, lazy, and the warlock’s gaze flicks to you, sharply assessing.

“I want to stop it,” he counters. “And you idiots haven’t even thought of that.”

“Are you gonna fuel the spell?” you ask. Derek is growling, a feral noise that settles you. “Or is it going to be sacrifices of the innocent that fed it? Because, you wanna die to stop the end of the world, by all means.”

“Foolish boy,” he hisses and you roll your eyes. Turn away.

“The lives of Beacon Hills is not yours to use,” Derek snarls, and the warlock cackles, a mad desperate laugh.

“Kill me then,” he taunts. “We’re all dead anyway.”

You make yourself watch, when Derek does. You wish you still regretted it.

 

*

 

The world is burning and there is no hiding from that. The dead are growing and the spells you use to protect your small town will fall.

You’ve accepted that. Derek hasn’t--he’s still fighting the inevitable, and refuses to accept that you can end this.

The spell would end it--maybe not drive out everything that has spilled into your world, but it would hold the shattered walls, stop them from spilling more death and destruction, more fury and flame.

You think it might be too late--but only when Derek is injured and the pack is fighting, and the smoke above Beacon Hills drives out the sunlight.

The world is ending and you know that now. You’ve accepted you will all die, and don’t even mind, most days.

But there are some moments that still feel like _yours._ When Derek curls around you in your bed and you can hear your father mumbling to himself in the hallway, when you drift to sleep, lulled not by fire but by Derek’s heartbeat and the smooth sweep of his thumb over your wrist.

You can almost forget that you are all going to die in fire.

 

*

 

It takes you a while to pay attention, because the world has done it’s best to keep your attention elsewhere.

But when you do, you see a pattern. You research for weeks, ignore Derek and the pack, and you sleep on the floor in your dad’s bedroom, something you haven’t done since the year your mom died, desperate to be close to him, even now.

Once you look, you can’t not see it.

The world is ending in waves. Plague and power, fire and flood. Even the walls shattering. It’s not the roar of fire, it’s the inexorable crash of waves. And if every wave breaks against a shore, there is a epicenter, a place where they originate and you look, you look.

You wish like hell there were another explanation, but there isn’t.

You stare at it, at the map of the waves and the epicenter and you know.

This is all your fault. Because the end of the world began in the nemeton.

 

*

 

You’re there, when it happens.

You’re in the back of the house, listless in Derek’s lap. The last wave to hit Beacon Hills had almost knocked down your shields, and even with the banshee screams to fuel your wards, you’d been left drained and exhausted.

But they did hold. The fog roiled against the edges of wards, rolling up like smoke that glowed the wrong color. Even now, you can see it, in the distance, a pale glowing blue fog.

The pack was circling the edges of the town, making sure that the wards held, not that you had any idea what you would do, if they didn’t.

You were rapidly running out of ideas for how to save your little town. Everything felt like a desperate stopgap, instead of a solution and you’d probably argue that with Derek--again--except your bones actually ached, you were so tired, and you couldn’t muster up the anger to fight, not today.

Today you wanted just this, his arms around you and your dad, puttering around the house, both of them safe.

Days like this, you ache with missing Scott and Lydia.

Derek’s arms tighten around you and you nuzzle into his embrace, and your eyes begin to close.

The gunshot snaps you upright, and you _know,_ you **_know_ ** even before you move.

You scream, a sound so raw it sounds like a roar, and Derek _does_ roar, a sound that the pack will answer.

He’s bleeding, too much and you slip in it, clumsy even now, as you fall down next to him, yank him into your arms and he doesn’t even shush you. His eyes are trained on you, on your face, and you can smell the blood, the stink of the burglar that Derek is killing, and you scream again.

Some of the tension slides out of him when Derek lands next to you, pain leaching from his body in thick black lines, and he makes a choked noise.

“Stiles,” he murmurs and you lean over him, your body a protective curve around him, and it’s not enough, it’s not enough, you didn’t keep him _safe_.

“Son,” he whispers and you choke on your sobs as he touches your face, a feather light brush that leaves you bloody, that burns all the way down to your heart and it’s _breaking._

“I love you, son,” he says and you _howl_ as he dies.

In the pack house, Lydia screams and screams and screams, and all around you, the wolves are howling.

 

*

 

Sometimes, you think about Before.

You used to bitch about it, about life in Beacon Hills and the unending slide of supernatural, the constant fighting for your life.

But it wasn’t all bad, and now, well.

Hindsight is twenty-twenty, and all that. So you think of it, sometimes, when you’re fighting a tulpa, when you’re burning a kelpie, when you’re stitching yourself up after a wendigo.

There was one trip, you remember most. It was the summer after college, and Derek asked you to go with him to meet a pack from Chicago. Lydia met you there, and it was _easy_ , effortless. You were surprised how easy it was to stand as Emissary, to listen to Lydia maneuver the other pack, to watch Derek be the alpha you always knew he could be.

But it’s not that--not only that--that you remember. It’s the day after, and Derek smiling at you, soft and shy. It was the little ice cream parlor he took you both too, and the stories he told about the year he spent here, with Laura, after the fire.

There was a pizza place he took you too after you were exhausted from walking around and Lydia had kicked out of her heels to trip along, tiny and happy at your side.

You wondered if she knew, about the night you spent with Derek, and the slow blooming thing between you.

He took you both to Navy Pier, and you leaned into him and ate sticky cotton candy and danced with her, when music played and her eyes were endless sparks. You smoked a joint with her, while he watched, his hand lazy on your hip and the wind an impatient tease in your hair, and when you kissed her, she tasted of ash and sugar and his needy groan chased you as you licked into her mouth.

You fell into bed, and she was a flame of hungry want and laughter between you, something you never expected, not from her.

Not that you ever expected this.

You think of it, sometimes, when you’re standing between them and the world is burning, and she gives you a wry, bloody grin.

You thought, for years, that you loved her, the pale perfect reflection she showed the world. And then you loved him and it wasn’t pale, wasn’t perfect.

You stare at her, sometimes, standing too close to Derek, so close it makes you ache, and you are fiercely glad that the world stripped away that pale perfection and left this girl you love, wild and beautiful and burning bright.

 

*

 

You are almost vibrating next to her, and she frowns at it, the map of waves, at the legend and lore you’ve pulled together, all a damning sign pointing to the end of the world.

She glares at it and then, “We did this?”

You heave a sigh, and slide down the wall to land on your ass and Lydia turns.

She’s wearing tight jeans and a fitted t shirt under her green jacket, and black boots with a practical but still significant heel and it amuses you that even now, she looks flawless, with her hair pulled into a neat braid.

“We did this,” you say.

She lands next to you and her head finds your shoulder. “Was it the sacrifice or the nogitsune?”

“Both. And the Wild Hunt, I think. Probably the fae we banished that one summer--”

“So it was everything,” she interrupts, and you nod.

It’s why it was so easy, to miss it, when the end began.

“Every time we drew on the nemeton--every time _I_ did--it fed a backlash into the world, and that backlash shattered the Walls between this world and the others.”

She stares at you, and her face is pale and drained and she says, “How do we stop it?”

You shake your head. Because you know you ended the world--but you have no idea how to save it.

 

*

 

“You’re being stupid,” you snap.

Derek’s shoulders are tight and tense, furious as he stands at the stove making dinner for you. Lydia sits near you, her legs tucked under her, silent as you fight.

She’s still got stitches, ones you put in her side, and she looks pale, drawn out and tired.

“And your suicidal,” Derek says, just as angry as you as he throws stir fry on a plate and pushes it at you

Even now, he’s feeding you, taking care of you, and you--

“We can _stop_ it,” you say, and you know you sound desperate, but you are. The dead are piling up in Europe, fires are crawling closer, the Eastern seaboard is under fucking water from the last tsunami, and none of that compares to the surge of magic that slammed into the world when the walls crashed down, didn’t compare to the _creatures_ that spilled over into your world.

“I can end it,” you say, and it’s not fierce, it’s desperate.

“The walls shattered, Stiles,” he sighs. “What are you strengthening? Something broken. You’d spend your last breath to seal something too broken to hold.”

“We don’t know that for sure,” you argue.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “You aren’t using yourself to fuel the spell.”

Lydia is quiet, and that tells you something, because if she disagreed--she would argue with him, go toe to toe with the Alpha.

“Am I worth damning the world?” you ask, and your voice shakes.

He looks at you then and his eye are steady, so steady it doesn’t feel like the world is shaking. “Yes.”

 

*

 

You watch the pack bury Liam and you don't feel it. You haven't felt much, since Scott died. You wish it bothered you more.

With the whole world on fire, you can't pretend to be surprised that your pack is dying. It feels inevitable and Scott is gone--it almost feels _just_ that his beta follows, cut down by a group of rogue omegas.

Others die. Peter dies bloody, brought down by a dragon, of all fucking things. Malia is clawed open by a Hellhound, and you watch Derek trying to save her, draining pain as fast as he can, his body shaking with it as she burns from the inside out.

You watch, and you wish you were more concerned about her. You aren’t. You know she’s dead, that nothing will save her now, and watching Derek killing himself trying to save her--that concerns you.

The pack is dying around you and you lean into your father and his hand runs over your hair, fond and worried and you know it’s inevitable and it feels impossibly distant--the way the world has felt since you held your dead brother in your arms--and you hate it. You hate the death and the fires burning and you hate the inevitability of it all.

“We’re all dying,” you whisper and your father stills. “Some are just going slower than others.”

He doesn’t dispute it and you can taste the funeral ash on your lips still.

 

*

 

Beacon Hills is a beacon in every sense. The world is ending in wave of magic, a backlash from your nemeton. And it _draws_ the supernatural to it, like it can feed itself with the blood of the creatures that die here.

Maybe it does. Nothing would surprise you about the damn tree.

Beacon Hills is a magical hotspot and even before the world began to end, your pack was gaining a reputation for being powerful. You had two alphas--one a true alpha, one a born wolf who could shift fully. You had a genius banshee and a kitsune and a Hunter family that protected your pack and trusted you. You had three chimera and a human almost as smart as Lydia Martin,and an Emissary who wasn’t half bad, even if you felt like you were the pack’s weakest link.

You were used to threats, to being able to hold your territory when threatened.

It’s why you didn’t realize,  until it was too late,what was happening. You were so used to fighting for what you claimed as home, that you didn’t see the pattern.

Not everything it draws is bad. There was a pair of hunters that showed up after Chris died. They bring a man who doesn’t feel quite human to you, and they stay, for a time, clear out a nest of vampires and leave a phone number before they leave in a sleek black car that Derek gives a speculative stare.

There are allies who stay. A passel of pixies who nest in the preserve, and patrol its borders, retreating only when it burns.

A witch, coven-less, and tired of running. She settles in downtown and offers training and remedies to you in payment for her time in your territory.

There is the werejaguar that Derek cannot stand, because she reminds him too much of Kate and you don’t trust her, because he doesn’t, but she hasn’t hurt the pack and saved Parrish.

The world is ending, and each new ally brings a piece of that with them

But maybe if they keep picking up the pieces, one day they’ll be able to put it back together.

Or they’ll all die as the world burns. You're  pretty sure it could go either way at this point.

 

*

 

The wards protecting Beacon Hills falter on a Saturday, while Derek and you are sleeping and you wake with a half strangled scream as it licks through you, that recoil of magic before they went steady.

When you blink, Derek is poised in front of you, eyes gleaming red and teeth bared in a snarl. You stare at him for what feels like a lifetime, and feel the magic strumming through, magic you built with her, a spell that protected the town you have loved your entire life, the town that started it all, and that is going to suck every last bit of magic from the world before it gives up it’s death throes.

The wards and shield is a magic woven of screams and mountain ash, of magic and will and desperation, and yours has never faltered.

“Lydia,” you gasp, and Derek _runs._

Her eyes are wide and sightless and her body is pale and fragile as you crash into the room where she lays and even though you see her every day, it never fails to gut you.

The beautiful girl of fire and fury you loved should not be this weak, this shell that mocked life.

She’s been screaming for almost a year, as the world died around you.

He isn’t screaming now, and you hear her say your name, her voice a shattered wreck “Stiles?” she whispers, and you make a noise that is almost a word. Derek is curling in the bed around her, and she groans as he leeches some of the pain from her, even as she shudders away from him, shaking. “I don’t want--I don’t wanna go,” she whispers, a shattered confession.

You’re crying and she touches your cheek with weak shaking fingers. “Be good to each other,” she says, a final order from the girl who so easily ordered two alphas around and you nod.

She dies between one breath and the next, while Derek holds her and weeps, and you sit next to her bed, her hand thin and fragile in yours.

The world is ending in waves, and this--this is the one that pulls you under and threatens to drown you.

This girl who dwindled away, whose magic fed the shields that keep you alive.

You don't realize you're screaming until Derek is holding you, his teeth pressed to the back of your neck, wrapped around you, tears cool against your skin and you break, and sob for end of the world, for Scott, for all the dead--but mostly for the girl who loved you both and died in your arms, her love burning bright.

 

*

 

Some nights, it’s soft and easy, and he lets you fuck him slow, like waves breaking across the shore, a steady roll of your hips driving deep into his tight heat, while he writhes and whines and falls apart so pretty for you, begging for more until you set your teeth in his skin and growl, call him yours and he comes untouched, gasping and moaning your name, a fucking benediction as you spill inside him, and your lips suck bruises that will fade, but the scent of you on his skin, in him, on his thighs and ass. That doesn’t.

Some nights, it’s rough and furious, as much a battle a it was when you threw yourself into danger, when you risked your neck and he screamed your name, and you both go home bloody and angry, and that anger breaks against each other, in kisses that draw blood and nails scratched against skin and fingers fucking in rough and hard as he moans your name, as you suck him furiously and squeeze his balls tighter and come against his leg, as he spills down your throat, cursing you before he drags you to bed and lays stiff and angry next to you.

Some nights it’s not even sex, it’s just being together, his head in your lap as you read and stroke his hair and he taps out emails. You don’t mind those nights, though you sometimes see him watching you shyly, like he isn’t sure he’s allowed this, allowed _you_ without the sex. You hate that look, so you drag him in and kiss him sweet, chaste until the tension drains from his shoulders and he smiles at you happily and you think you could live always, like this.

Some nights, though. Some nights are like pieces of time, frozen. When he curls around you on the couch and pets you slow, until you’re panting, and moving against him.

When he carries you to the kitchen and cooks for you, and feeds you from his plate, watching with heavy lidded eyes as you lick his fingers clean. When you lick into his mouth and taste the sweet burst of sugar from the cookies he made you and whisper, “i love you,” and his eyes are bright in the darkness of the world, the light that guides you in all the black and you focus on that as he worships you, until you can’t focus anymore, his lips working against you, marking sucking bruises down your spin and spreading you open. You keen when he licks over you and wiggle against his hold, shy in a way you never expected to be, not with Derek, and he huffs a laugh and nips you until you still before he licks you, slow and thorough, working you open until you’re begging and wet and sloppy and he’s licking around the three fingers he has buried in you.

He says it again, when he presses into you, those tiny three word that mean so much  and you shake as he moves in you and in the darkness, you see his eyes reflected in the window of the house, and the branches of the trees reaching for the empty sky, and beyond that the crescent moon and nothing is better than this, this, this one moment, stolen and frozen in time, as the world begins to burn.

 

*

 

You stand in the wood. The preserve burned months ago, when you conceded it to the fires raging across the continent. But here, this place, is untouched. It would be. It feels like the eye of the storm, the perfect center of the raging destruction, and you hate it. You climb up, and sit there, cross legged, elbows on your knees. You sat like this, once, a lifetime ago, and played  a game with a demon.

You wish you were still playing.

Derek would be pissed, if he knew you were here. Alone. Without protection.

The wind ripples around you, and you can feel the heat of it, the whispers of wild magic that makes your fingers tingle and the wooden stump warm, and you tip your head back, looking for the moon in a sky obscured by smoke.

You feel tears on your cheeks and far away, you can hear the pack, what is left of them, howling.

 

*

 

Derek trots at your side, a giant black wolf with brilliant blue eyes next to a young man too human to ever be considered a threat, in a world magic destroyed.

He snuffles the ground and you whistle, and he swivels to give you a narrow eyed glare, a low growl.

“Big bad wolf,” you tease, clenching your fingers in his fur and he snarls, catches your wrist in his jaw and licks it, wet and slobbery while you laugh.

You tug him along and he prods you when you slow, and it feels almost like before, just a fall day and two idiots so in love you couldn’t imagine it ending.

You smile and the world is ending around you, but for a moment, for this moment, you are happy.

And you wonder if that isn’t what life is. If that isn’t what _love_ is. Finding someone to be happy with, even when the rest of the world is on fire.

 

*

 

You fought crazed uncles and exs, hunters and alphas and a fucking insane daroch. You fought each other and the world, and you won, you won, every fucking time, you won.

You know you can’t win, this time.

The world is ending, and sometimes--when Derek holds you close, and there is only the two of you, you can pretend.

But this is the truth.

The ugly, bitter, inescapable truth.

The first knife sinks in and you scream, a wolf’s howl, all rage and grief, and it startles the hunter hold you so badly he drops you. You tuck and roll, and you miss it, the second and third stabs, even though you can _feel_ his breath catching. You whisper as you come roll to your feet and throw your hand up and at the hunter with a low latin chant and the spell Lydia crafted crackles to life, slams into the hunter with the force of a banshee scream and the violence of a werewolf’s claws, and it rips him in two.

The other hunters--there are two left--curse, one of them dropping Derek and you snarl as he falls, blood dripping. You throws the spell, and there’s a shriek, a wet noise cut off abruptly. You’re grinning wide and feral when you turn to the last hunter, and you can feel the fires of the world at your bac and you feel invincible.

You watch as the hunter jerks his blade, coated in wolfsbane, up and across Derek’s gut.

Derek is watching you, and he’s smiling, so sad and even through the pain, he won’t look away.

You want to look away, but you don’t. You stare at him, hold his eyes because you can’t hold him, can’t get to him in time, and he deserves this, he deserves so much more than this.

The hunter is cursing you both when he slits Derek’s throat and you throw the spell in the same breath, catching Derek as the hunter is torn apart, and you can feel his blood splashing on you, you can feel his breath, sharp little pained gasps and his eyes bright on you.

“Stiles,” you hear and then there is nothing.

There is only the silent forest and the wind moving through the trees and your grief, so loud it is deafening in your head, and you tip your head back and _scream._

 

*

 

You sit on the stump and the winds are roaring now. His head is in your lap, and you keep touching him, petting him.

There is a logical, practical side of you, that says it’s useless, that he's gone. He can't feel your caress, can't hear the quiet words you whisper to him.

He doesn't look like he's sleeping. You've seen him sleep, exhausted and bruised and happy and lax. This pale stillness, bloody and alien--this looks nothing like Derek when he sleeps.

You lean over him and kiss his head and you remember, suddenly, standing furious in his kitchen while Lydia watched. Telling him you could end it, could strengthen the walls with your blood and magic and he said no.

He stared at you and said the world was not more important than your life.

You would have told him the same, if he had asked, but maybe he didn't because he didn't need to.

Maybe he always knew.

The wind is screaming now and you can _feel_ it, the spell catching and holding and you smile into his bloody shoulder.

Sacrifice always fueled the nemeton, and  nemeton drew magic to it, in great waves that destroyed the world.

You tilt your head back as the shields around your city come down, too weak to stand. You’re wavering now, and you can hear the wind howling and the sound of flames, as the stump warms with your blood and your power,  with your sacrifice.

He lays in your lap and you smile, dreamy, at the sky. The world stole everything from you. Your brothed and pack. The girl you loved and your father. It stole your childhood.

It stoke Derek.

And it can fucking **_burn_ **.

You laugh until you cry and when you finally close your eyes, too weak to keep them open, you smile and nestle closer to him.

 

*

 

The remains of the pack find them there, and Kira is screaming, screaming above the wind and the fire, against the magic being pulled in to the nemeton.

On the wide stump, they almost look peaceful.

The fires are closing in and they run, shifted and desperate and futile, they run.

They leave them there, wrapped around each other in death as the world slowly burns.

 


End file.
